


nothing gold can stay

by threefundamentaltruths



Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Consensual Infidelity, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:54:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29086413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefundamentaltruths/pseuds/threefundamentaltruths
Summary: Upon their long-awaited return to town, Marina sees her husband smile and laugh for the first time in an eternity in her cousin’s presence, sees the way her cousin still lights up whenever he is near and the guilty look that steals over her face in the next moment, and decides that at least one of them ought to be happy in her marriage.AU where Lady Whistledown doesn't reveal Marina's secret and Colin and Marina proceed with their elopement.
Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Marina Thompson, Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Penelope Featherington & Marina Thompson
Comments: 42
Kudos: 189





	nothing gold can stay

**Author's Note:**

> Title and some lines in the text from Robert Frost's ["Nothing Gold Can Stay"](https://poets.org/poem/nothing-gold-can-stay). Aware that the use of this poem is anachronistic and totally okay with it.
> 
> Also, takes Colin and Daphne's lines about the Leander myth from the show and puts them in a different context.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [your3fundamentaltruths](https://your3fundamentaltruths.tumblr.com)

Upon their long-awaited return to town, Marina sees her husband smile and laugh for the first time in an eternity in her cousin’s presence, sees the way her cousin still lights up whenever he is near and the guilty look that steals over her face in the next moment, and decides that at least one of them ought to be happy in her marriage.

When she proposes that Penelope come stay with them, Penelope shakes her head. “Marina, I could not possibly –”

“It is _unbearable_ ,” she confesses.

Penelope frowns, as if she cannot imagine being with Colin to be anything but perfect. Silly girl.

Still, she’s the one who made Colin wretched and she can’t quite forgive herself for it. She hadn’t had a choice, but she nevertheless feels guilty. “He is miserable and I am miserable and I can’t bear it any longer. Something needs to change.”

“Marina, I –”

She takes Penelope’s hands before her cousin can snatch them away. “I know. You warned me and I didn’t listen. Nor did I take your feelings into account. I know you owe me nothing. But it’s not as if you are enjoying yourself here in London.” _As an on-the-shelf spinster_ , she doesn’t add. She doesn’t need to. They both know it. “And shouldn’t you like for Colin to be happy again?”

Penelope sighs and, by the sound of it, she knows she has won her point.

The dowager baroness does not bat an eye at Marina’s invitation to have Penelope come stay with her as a companion and so off she goes with them, back to the country.

\---

With Penelope’s arrival begins quite honestly the most peaceful and contented period Marina has ever known in her marriage. It is awkward at first, but when it comes down to it, Colin adores her and the children adore her and _she_ adores her cousin for the sunshine she’s brought with her, bright as the dresses of old that Penelope so hated.

For the first time since Marina and Colin arrived at their marital home, their marriage already twisted beyond salvaging, the house is filled with warmth and music and laughter.

As long as they’ve been married and she’d not even known Colin _could_ sing until Penelope asks him to one night. The pair of them sound so well together when Penelope accompanies him on the newly-tuned pianoforte.

She’d quite forgotten the sound of her own laughter.

\---

It’s lovely while it lasts. So lovely she even begins to entertain the notion of finding someone for herself.

But it doesn’t last nearly as long as she would’ve wished.

Of _course_ it couldn’t last. Since when does happiness, twisted though its form, last in this world?

This time around, Marina recognizes the signs right away and does not let Penelope waste time in denial as she did.

There’s none to spare.

\---

“What are we going to do?”

“We?” Colin looks at her as though she’s gone daft. “I fail to see how this is any concern of yours.”

“ _I_ brought her here to make you happy and now –” She waves her hands vaguely, as though she can somehow capture the catastrophe before them with the gesture.

The irony is exquisite. Because she trapped him into marriage to secure a name for _her_ babies, it’s now impossible for him to claim a child that actually is his.

And it is _all_ her doing, truly. She didn’t just look the other way – she intentionally invited another woman into her home to make it more bearable and now has come the time for them to pay the piper.

“I could go away,” Penelope whispers. “Perhaps the Continent? I’ve never even left England, you know.” She gives a wobbly smile.

“Absolutely not!”

They both ignore Colin’s outburst.

“Would you be able to bear it?” she asks quietly.

Penelope’s eyes fill with tears and she dips her head in that way that means she wants them all to pretend she isn’t about to cry. She moves to rise to her feet, but Marina puts a restraining hand on hers to hold her fast. “I need a moment,” Penelope insists.

She doesn’t let go.

“Marina, please,” Penelope pleads. “You’re not the sort to be cruel.”

Except, they both know, for when she jabbed a knife in the tenderest part of Penelope’s heart in service of saving herself and her children.

_Your love is an unrequited fantasy._

The ironic thing was that she’d been so bloody sure of herself, sure of her own wisdom and superiority, and yet she’d been wrong.

Would she have behaved differently if she’d known? If she’d seen that beneath Colin’s boyish infatuation with her lay an abiding affection for Penelope that was merely waiting for the right moment to blossom into love?

She likes to think so.

But she’s not the slightest bit sure.

And it is hardly her fault that Colin was so blind, had his head so easily turned by her.

Still, if she were a better person, perhaps she might erase herself from this narrative _now_ , run off to the Continent herself instead. Colin would be thrilled, naturally, and the children are so young that they would forget her in time. Penelope would be kind to them; she already loves them.

As for herself, it’s a prettier picture than she cares to admit, breaking free of this prison of her own making and leaving it all behind. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed of how little the idea of leaving behind the last two pieces of her love hurts her.

But she isn’t a better person and she isn’t ashamed. She’s simply trying to survive, just as Colin and Penelope are. And it’s not as if her departure would solve the immediate issue, anyway. It’s only a useless fantasy.

“A husband,” she says at last, knowing there is nothing else for it. She looks to Colin again. “Surely your brother can help with that. One who would look the other way, both as to the child and as to . . .” She eyes her husband dispassionately. “You.”

Colin hisses a word she’d never dreamed he’d have said in front of either of them. “How do you think I would feel, seeing my child call another man father?”

“Would you prefer to have your child raised entirely by strangers rather than remain with its mother?” she counters coldly.

“I would _prefer_ never to have laid eyes on you,” he snarls.

Colin may be a man now, yet there is still so much in him of the foolish boy.

She forgets that sometimes because that foolish boy was also sweet, but for her there is nothing sweet in him now. For the children and more recently for Penelope, yes, but not for her, except in the calm before this new storm.

“Be realistic,” she snaps. She has no choice but to be harsh. He is such an impractical man.

He glares at her.

“Of course,” she continues very deliberately, “we could raise the child here, as my –”

“No!” The word sounds as if it’s ripped from Penelope’s very soul.

And in the end, the choice must be Penelope’s.

\---

When it comes down to it, Penelope is far more realistic than either of them.

“This needn’t be the end –”

“You know it must,” Penelope interrupts softly. “It’s impossible for us to carry on like this.”

“Leander swam Abydos to Sestos every single night in complete darkness just to see his love.” Colin sounds so utterly desperate that she does feel badly for him, despite the ridiculousness of his citing some silly story she doesn’t even recognize to persuade Penelope not to cut him loose.

Colin likes his stories, but they’ve always bored her. He’s always had his head in the clouds, whilst her feet have remained planted firmly on the ground.

“Leander also lost his way and drowned,” Penelope says quietly. “So the story goes.” She gives Colin a sad smile, the expression entirely at odds with her wedding finery.

Somehow, despite the tragic look in her eyes, her cousin has never looked lovelier.

“You may have already lost your way, but I should prefer for you not to drown.”

Colin’s eyes are flat with pain, more devastated even than the day he found out the truth about her reasons for marrying him. “ _Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief –_ ”

He seems to have lost the capacity to express his sorrow in his own words.

“ _So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay_ ,” Penelope finishes in unison with him. She bites her lip, hand outstretched as if to take his, before she thinks better of it and snatches it back. “Goodbye, Colin.” Very low, full of unshed tears.

And yet, she is skeptical that this is goodbye forever.

As well she knows, forever is a very long time.


End file.
